THE President, Mrs McAleese, is saying nothing about Justine McCarthy's Mary McAleese: The Outsider published this week by Blackwater. She didn't say anything before and she won't say anything now. The unauthorised biography details Mrs McAleese's life up to her inauguration as President two years ago. And it's an interesting life - sectarian violence in Belfast, a broken engagement, Trinity professor at 24, RTE reporter, bishops' spokeswoman and failed Dail candidate.
But, the chapter on RTE relates, it was at Montrose where she was called a "West Belfast Provo" that she felt most traumatised. McCarthy says McAleese described the anti-nationalist regime in RTE current affairs in the late 1970s and early 1980s as "Kafkaesque" and under the influence of the Workers' Party. She is quoted as being incensed that while WP members were engaged in crime in the North, she had to listen to them preach class politics in the South. She had, she said later, a dreadful time with WP members in prominent positions in RTE.
This week, her spokeswoman said the President had decided not to co-operate with any biographer, because you can't favour one above another; giving an interview risks endorsement; friends asking if they should talk to McCarthy were told it was up to them; her immediate family are private people and did not want any involvement. Since a couple of copies were lying around the Aras the next day, Wednesday (her Dail election agent Harry Casey bought 14 at the launch), she is, however, bound to read it.
The actor Stephen Rea was to launch the book (his wife, former hunger striker, Dolores Price was at school with the future President on the Falls Road), but cancelled at the last minute amid unproven rumours of having been "got at" by the Aras. Noel Pearson did the honours instead. Several Cabinet ministers were invited, but they didn't show either. Guests at the Davenport Hotel included chief whip, Seamus Brennan, Senators Maurice Hayes and Joe Costello and unionist, Steven King.